to think chavy, tacky hen parties should SOD off [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[CannoninD]

I’m fed up.
I’ve lived in my beautiful, respectful and historic city my entire life .... but over the last year it’s been invaded by GOD AWFUL hen parties!

20+ strong groups of horrifically common (referring to behaviour not social class) women who inflict their horrific behaviour on everybody within reach.

They’re EVERYWHERE and I know it’s not just me as there are sunbstantial concerns being raised by residents all over the city.

I counted 23 large groups this weekend (I only walked into the (small ish) city centre on Saturday morning and witnessed the following behaviour-

• Loud swearing (F and C word) right in front of/across young families and children just trying to enjoy a day out.
• Shop doors slammed in elderly shoppers faces (too busy pratting around to pay any attention).
• Stock being damaged by pratting about (and then hidden) to avoid paying.
• Horrifically vulgar and inappropriate content being loudly discussed in family areas (a garden/park area) to the point that families got up and left.
• Completely inappropriate Lingerie being worn in the street (before 2pm).
• Vomiting in the street! Whilst being jeered by the rest of the group.

Personally I would rather bleach out my own eyes than go on a hen do like this- but honestly at what point do we just call the police on these ridiculous idiots inflicting such unreasonable behaviour on families and regular people? What’s worse is, I bet back home they’re perfectly normal women. They just all get together and come away from home and behave like total arseholes!

Being in a large group and celebrating an event- does not give you a hall pass to behave like scum. 😡

I judge people who behave as the OP described - how could you not? Dont care what social class they seem to be, but their behaviour is perfectly described as chavvy, common, disgusting etc etc.

Nothing wrong with being out with your mates, having a few too many - but urinating/defecating in public, the F and C word in broad daylight in front of children, etc etc - come on, how can anyone think that's a reasonable way to behave?

I'm tempted to say the authorities should construct some holding pens on the outskirts of the city, round them up, put them on buses and drive them out there to sober up. Invite a few journalists along to spread the word. They'd probably only have to do it a few times to get the message across.

More realistically, premises that sell alcohol to people who appear to be intoxicated can have their licences removed, or not renewed.

I hope all these people have their social media locked down tight. No employer that has a reputation to maintain would be too impressed.

80sMum Its sad, isn’t it?
I had a week in York in 1979 with my mum and brother. It was amazing: we found so much to do, and I loved walking around the walls.
My mum still has the brass rubbing I did on her wall!
Had another very brief visit when DH took me to the railway museum for my 26th birthday (24 years ago).

I’m sad that a beautiful place has come to this. Surely families that spend a week visiting everything are the tourists that a city want to keep, rather than a group of repulsive Bulgarians pissing and vomiting everywhere.

Oops, I meant vulgarians of course... apologies to any Bulgarians on this thread!

How odd, Captain! Reported OP for what exactly? I think she is perfectly reasonable to object to this behaviour - mind you I guess it depends on your level of education

Hen dos are mostly cheap and tacky but it sure is fun to watch a bitch fight and see them slapping and pulling hair whilst inebriated 🥴

Some of the local councillors have started suggested a voluntary £1 a night "tourist tax" charge to be added to hotel bills to be spent on tackling antisocial behaviour (and generally making the touristy areas a bit nicer, and also supporting homeless people).

Agreed. Would hate a hen party like that - I remember being 16 years old walking home from work in Leeds to see a group of women in fancy dress (slutty and ill fitting) all holding giant penises and throwing dildos at people.

Gross.

A night in an air bnb with a day at the spa or a weekend in France with cheese and wine tasting are my prospective hens.

Are you in York? It's vile

There is always a fat gobby ringleader IME

Totally sympathise OP. You have every right to be unhappy.

Love York, absolutely fantastic throughout the week but avoid like the plague at a weekend. Come Sunday morning and the streets are paved with piss and vomit. I'm sure the hen and stag parties bring in money but what the council is failing to realise is that it's putting both tourists and locals off, surely a bigger loss of revenue.

That's not my idea of fun hellooosweetheart.

@mathanxiety I used to live in the Kilkenny area and it's full of drunken idiots, both men and women. I remember a few years ago driving through at night with dd looking for our hotel and a couple were shagging in the streets. Thankfully dd was asleep.

"I beg to differ"

What are you differing about MsTSwift?

Hen dos are mostly cheap and tacky but it sure is fun to watch a bitch fight and see them slapping and pulling hair whilst inebriated

I find such behaviour thoroughly depressing myself, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

This thread is such a depressing eye-opener. I had no idea this behaviour was going on in so many places. Horrible.

Well I would gladly volunteer to do regular shifts in the local city centre CCTV office monitoring hideous behaviour, taking snapshots and sending to local media to get people to come forward and name and shame and issue some kind of ASBOs. This has made me so cross that somewhere as beautiful as York is getting literally trashed by idiots that I feel like starting a full scale Mary Whitehouse style morality movement

Why is it even a thing? A “hen”
Wtf?

When did this happen?

I am from Liverpool which has been popular with hen and stag dos for years and while this behaviour does go on, it tends not to be in the main shopping areas- probably partly as it's a much bigger city than York but also down to experience and long term planning by the council over time.
York is one of my favourite places after my own city so I do hope this can be managed so that residents and visitors can enjoy it again .

thesmallestpotato
Name and shame, you say? That would be great if only these people had any shame. If their antics were to be posted on YouTube, I bet they’d only be proud.
That’s the whole problem: no class, no decorum, no standards, no shame.

HPLikecraft very true. How has this happened?!

I don’t think women who wear tee shirts with slogans like “smash my back doors in” have any shame so naming and shaming is not going to work

@CannoninD there is a charity dedicated to helping your lovely city every Friday and Saturday evening

http://www.streetangelsyork.com

Each Friday and Saturday night at 9pm a group of volunteers from across the city’s churches will meet at the base to prepare for the evening. Each volunteer has a reflective “Street Angels York” jacket so that they are easily recognisable as a professional and safe person to approach. They head out as a group of three or four to patrol the streets and visit pubs and bars.

Perhaps this is something to promote or help, as well as writing to your local MP and council.

Clearly you're not the only person who is concerned by the change in visitors / tourists to your lovely city, maybe a campaign to control the parties is somewhere to start. And what better way to start than going out into the community and linking with the people who deal with it.

Do they have no shame?

Well from I witnessed when visiting no, they don't.

Quite the reverse in fact.

All egging each other on, whooping and laughing at behaviour that's utterly vile.

They can see people with young children around them yet still think it's acceptable to yell "hurry up you drunken cunt" and "fuck you motherfucker" at full volume in the main shopping street in the afternoon, or decide that their dress (if you can call it that) needed re-adjusting, a process that involved unnecessarily flashing their thong and then breasts to all and sundry to whoops of laughter from the rest of the party (this from a stag and hen party respectively within about 10 mins of each other in the middle of the afternoon).

Then the singing (shrieking). 15 women all thinking they can sing and standing round a talented (young female) street entertainer and "joining in"; driving away all the people who had been enjoying (and throwing money in her guitar case) her singing - then buggering off without leaving a penny.

Or a woman pretending to penetrate herself in the park we walked through (on our way back to the car park) with a bottle of Prosecco (cue much "hilarity" and filthy comments) next to families trying to enjoy the gardens.

I thankfully didn't see anyone urinating in public but I suspect that's because by 5pm we were in the car driving away.

The irony is they visit because it's such a lovely picturesque place and don't care that they are ruining it for everyone else.

I'm not a prude or someone who wants to be a killjoy but what we witnessed wasn't about people having fun or getting carried away; it was people revelling in loutish, inconsiderate, anti social behaviour.

I’ve often thought I’d like to picket York Station and turn the annoying fuckers back.

The last time I was in the city centre on a Saturday afternoon I could have cried. I moved to this city from Hull in 1992, and I loved it for twenty years.

Now I feel like I’m watching it fall apart.

Empty shops up and down Coney Street; buskers being heckled; homeless people being abused by pissed-up stags while their friends film it on their phones; people puking down shop windows; young lasses literally crawling along the pavements; police and ambulances everywhere...it’s gutting.

You go shopping at the weekend (if you can find a shop that hasn’t shut down and turned into a bar or chain restaurant) and find yourself surrounded by yet more drunks. It’s bloody obnoxious behaviour.

Even the quality of the shops has dumbed down to cater to idiots. I used to run a bookshop in the Shambles a few years ago. It was a great little street - it had independent jewellers, an art supply shop, a leather shop/cobblers, clothes shops...along with some more gifty shops for tourists.

Now it’s wall to wall Harry Potter merchandise, because someone decided the Shambles looks a bit like Diagon Alley. York has bugger all to do with Harry Potter, yet the history of the street has been buried under a load of wizard tat.

I never thought I’d say it, but I finally want to move after almost 30 years.